


when the winds are strong

by chlodobird



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir Deserves Better, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir Needs a Hug, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Breakdowns on the Eiffel Tower, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Identity Reveal, Let these kids be kids!, Marinette Dupain-Cheng Needs a Hug, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug Deserves Better, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug Has Anxiety, Pre-Relationship, Wingfic, and they get one, bc i can't NOT include magic hahaha, i smacked canon with a hammer until it was unrecognizable and then chose the best fragments, oh i almost forgot, they're tired and sad and they give each other hugs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:42:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28237908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chlodobird/pseuds/chlodobird
Summary: When Ladybug and Chat Noir transform, they have wings. They're the saviors of Paris- but they're just a couple of teenagers.On bad days, they wait until night falls, and sneak out. They meet high above the city and talk to the only other person with the weight of a city on their shoulders.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Tikki
Comments: 7
Kudos: 74





	when the winds are strong

**Author's Note:**

> marinette and adrien are anxiety/depression solidarity, send tweet

She and Chat found each other on the Eiffel Tower.

He looked as tired as she felt.

“Bad day, huh?” he asked.

“Yeah. You too?”

“Yep. Who’s first?”

They had a system; on serious nights, whenever they needed to feel close to someone who got it, they groomed each other’s wings. For Ladybug, it grounded her to the present. She wasn’t sure why Chat liked it, but she suspected it reminded him that someone cared.

She winced. “I’d rather listen first, and talk later.”

He nodded and turned around, letting his wings fall gently into her hands. She had preened him dozens of times, but like clockwork, he began to melt into her touch. The tension remained, but the edge was gone.

“I just . . . I feel numb, so much of the time. And it’s not so bad when I’m around my friends, or you, but as soon as I’m alone again it creeps back in, fast. Plagg helps, but my father keeps me so busy that I can’t spend much time with anyone.”

Ladybug nodded and kept straightening her partner’s soft feathers. The powder-down dusted her hands.

“I used to love anime. It was so exciting, and all the characters were so cool, but it’s hard to watch now. Because . . .” He trailed off, thinking. It took him a while to find the words to describe it. “Ladybug, we’re heroes, but it didn’t change how I feel. I still feel tired and bland all the time. Becoming a superhero didn’t  _ fix this _ .”

“What kind of night is tonight?” It was their routine; sometimes they needed advice, sometimes comfort and support, and sometimes just to vent and then be distracted.

He let her finish preening while he thought, and decided, “Comfort, please.”

“Chat, I’m always here for you. Plagg, your friends, they’re there for you too. You’re my partner. My best friend.” She pulled him into a hug, and he sank into her arms.

She had no idea how long they spent curled together on the cold beam of the tower, but eventually Chat detangled himself and nodded towards her wings. “Your turn.”

She unfurled her wings and smiled halfheartedly at him. “Thanks, kitty.”

He groomed her wings, waiting for her to speak, and after a few minutes, she sighed. “I wish I could talk to a therapist, but I can’t imagine how that would go. I can’t go to a therapist as Ladybug, and if I talked to one as a civilian, I wouldn’t be able to talk about hero stuff.” She’d thought about it before. A lot, actually. 

“Maybe I could just go as a civilian and only talk about the things that are stressing out in my civilian life? I just don’t want to make her think that I’m hiding something. I’m not 18, she could tell my parents everything! And all of them find out I’m Ladybug and then Hawkmoth finds out? What if my therapist ends up being Hawkmoth!” 

She took a deep breath. Chat’s hands were combing through her feathers, steadying her. Grounding her. She matched her breathing to his, and started again. “Sorry. I just . . . I don’t know. Everything feels so out of control. With babysitting, and school, and friends, my hobbies, and dropping everything for akuma attacks, I just feel like I’m constantly running out of time. And that’s another reason why I can’t talk to a therapist! If I tell her that I constantly feel like if I fail at something, Paris will be destroyed, she’ll assume I’m exaggerating. But I can’t mess up! Chat, I don’t know what to  _ do _ .”

His preening never wavered. “What kind of night is it?”

“Advice, I think. I’ll stop you if I get overwhelmed.”

“It’s okay to mess up. It’s okay to say that you can’t do something. And, Ladybug, I think that you should talk to a therapist. You need support in your civilian life. Even if you can’t tell them about being a hero, they can give you advice on how to deal with the out-of-control feeling,” he said quietly. “I can’t give real-life advice without information, and that’s dangerous.”

Except maybe . . . Ladybug bolted upright. “Stay here a moment. I need to talk to Tikki.”

Chat looked baffled, but he nodded, and Ladybug swooped upwards out of his line of sight.

Ladybug glanced around, found her footing, and let her transformation fall.

(She was never going to used to the off-balance feeling of two extra limbs vanishing)

The first few times she had detransformed while high above the city was dizzying, a rush of adrenaline and nerves. Now heights felt like home.

“Tikki, Chat and I need to know each other’s identities,” Marinette said, sounding less and less firm with every word. “We can’t keep going like this. I’m going to burn out, and Chat’s not doing any better. I can’t fully support him if I don’t know who he is, and vice versa, right?”

The little god sighed. “I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently, and I talked to Plagg about it when I got a chance. You’ve had some close calls with akumas. If you both agree it’s a good idea, Plagg and I think you should try.”

Marinette nodded and jumped off the beam, calling her transformation as she began to fall. Her wings snapped out, and she circled the tower once before landing on Chat’s beam.

“Do you still want to exchange identities?”

He blinked. “Um. What?”

“I talked to Tikki. She and Plagg gave us the all clear,” Ladybug added hastily. “But it’s not for them. I want to be able to support you in your civilian life. I want to be able to talk to you without having to transform. I want us to be partners in both sides of our life, Chat!”

He scooped her into a hug, and whispered, “Yes. Absolutely.”

“And- and you’re sure?”

“Buginette,” he said softly, “if you need more time to think, I’ll wait. It’s up to you, but whatever you decide, it  _ will _ be fine.”

Ladybug closed her eyes.

It’ll be fine.

She had her partner.

“Spots off.”

“Claws in.”

She kept her eyes screwed shut.

“I haven’t opened my eyes yet,” Chat admitted quietly. His voice sounded different. Familiar.

“Me neither.”

“On three?”

She nodded against his shoulder, and they counted together.

“One. Two. Three.”

She leaned back, opened her eyes, and wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.

“It’s you,” Adrien breathed, eyes hopeful. “Marinette.”

“It’s you,” she echoed. She pulled him in close, and shakily began to chuckle. “I can’t believe it’s been you the whole time. We were  _ so close _ .”

He was so warm.

“How do you find the time to  _ breathe _ with everything you have going on?”

“Honestly? I feel like I can’t breathe a lot of the time. Like there’s a weight on my chest,” she admitted.

“I don’t know how much I can help, but I’m here for you.”

She was distantly aware of Tikki pulling Plagg up into the beams above them, but she didn’t care. “And Adrien? Whenever you feel that way, text me, or Nino, or Alya even. You’re  _ not alone _ .”

“Hawkmoth better watch out,” he said, amusement trickling into his voice. “Ladybug was the scariest person I know, and Marinette was the second scariest. If you’re the same person, that’s . . . double badass.”

She snorted. “Thanks.”

Adrien detached himself from her just enough so that they could sit and look out over the city. “There’s still more we should talk about,” he said reluctantly.

“Tomorrow. Tonight, we can just breathe.”

“If you insist,” he said with a smile. “I’m so happy it’s you.”

Marinette pulled him closer. “That means the world to me, kitty. You will always have a home with me.”

**Author's Note:**

> writing is just projection and giving the characters the hugs you wish you had! thanks for coming to my ted talk :)  
> anyway if yall are interested ask me about my headcanons for what kind of bird wings each character has bc i love thinking about these funky lil bird superheroes and i 100% have species picked out for all of them!


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